HUD Cohort 4 and Connecticut Complete Their 100-Day Challenge to Prevent and #EndYouthHomelessness

August was an exciting month in the movement to prevent and #EndYouthHomelessness. In addition to the True Colors Impact Summit, the announcement of 23 new Youth Homelessness Demonstration Project communities, and the announcement of A Way Home America’s Grand Challenge communities, HUD Cohort 4 and Connecticut both completed their 100-Day Challenges on youth homelessness with amazing results. Here’s a breakdown from their Sustainability Workshops! 

The 4th HUD Cohort to accept the 100-Day Challenge to prevent and #EndYouthHomelessness consisted of 4 rural communities, including:

• Horry County, South Carolina
• Northern Michigan (Manistee, Missaukee, and Wexford Counties)
• Tompkins County/Ithaca, New York
• West Tennessee

These communities all came together for the very first time in Traverse City, Michigan to share their results, celebrate their achievements, and learn from one another’s experiences. Over the course of their Challenge, a collective 158 youth and young adults were safely and stably housed.

Some great conversations were had, and as these communities prepare for their What’s Next Workshops, they are ready to keep carrying forward what they learned from their Challenge!

Check out these awesome videos created by Horry County and Tompkins County on their 100-Day experiences, which were shared at the Sustainability Workshop. 

For a full breakdown of HUD Cohort 4’s results, you can find their dashboards here. 

The same day that HUD Cohort 4 launched, Connecticut also launched an ambitious statewide initiative to prevent and end youth homelesssness, consisting of 100-Day Challenges across 7 regions in the state - aimed at jumpstarting progress towards their goal of ending youth homelessness by 2020. The communities to participate in the Challenge included:

• Central Connecticut
• Fairfield County
• Greater Hartford
• Greater New Haven
• Meriden/Middlesex/Wallingford
• Southeast Connecticut
• Waterbury

As a part of this 100-Day Challenge, the RRI trained local Change Stewards to work with local leaders to develop their community’s Challenge and support the team throughout the journey. After their 100 days, these communities came together once more at the Sustainability Workshop at The Lyceum in Hartford, Connecticut. 

Through some energizing and thought-provoking conversations they learned a great deal from one another’s initiatives, delivered some inspirational presentations to the group, and celebrated their achievement of collectively housing 397 youth and young adults in just 100 days! 

And, they aren’t done yet! On the second day of the Sustainability Workshop, leaders from across the state were in attendance to share in the celebration and to help in charting the path forward. Inspired by the amazing achievements and the momentum of the 100-Day teams, they set an important date - June 30th, 2020. The date they set to accomplish their goal of ending youth homelessness across Connecticut - “so that no young person graduates into homelessness.”

We couldn’t be more proud of these two groups of communities, and we can’t wait to see what amazing things they continue to achieve. We will be sure to keep everyone updated on their progress!

We are also excited to announce the 3 communities that will participate in the very first Locally Organized Cohort to accept the 100-Day Challenge to prevent and #EndYouthHomelessness. The announcement will be in our October newsletter, so be sure to subscribe!